Tag: Writing

Writers need to take chances… Nicola May on the Creative Differences podcast

This month’s special guest Nicola May reveals how she got her books into a major book chain…

Listen to Mark Stay’s Creative Differences on your favourite podcast provider:

lISTEN TO THE WHOLE PODCAST

Or watch the whole interview on Youtube…

TRANSCRIPT

NICOLA: Don’t let anything or anyone stop you
because at the London Book Fair I once and chased after the book buyer of WH Smiths with Love Me Tinder and I said, “Go on, you know, you want to put this in your shop, but it ended up in WH Smiths Travel. Do you know what I mean? It’s like you’ve got to take chances.

MARK: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. Absolutely love it

Creative Differences Episode 6 with Nicola May: “Persistence over Resistance”

Nicola May is the author of heartwarming and funny romantic comedies, including the hugely successful Ferry Lane and Cockleberry Bay series, she’s a great champion for indie authors and she’s here to kick off 2025 with another bestseller ‘How Do I Tell You?’ 

We discuss: 

Tips for writing romcoms 

The key differences between self publishing, traditional publishing and digital-first publishers 

Balancing serious themes with heartwarming fiction 

And much more!

LISTEN NOW

LINKS 

Nicola’s website 

The Green Room 

Kinky Boots Musical UK Tour 2025 

Rivals

Paul Mescal in A Streetcar Named Desire 

Katherine Priddy and Simon Armitage 

Julian Barr’s Worldbreaker 

American Primeval

Edit by Kai Newton

Production assistance by Emily Stay

Jingle by Dom Currie

The Crow Folk is 4 Years Old Today

The Crow Folk was published this day in 2021! Crikey, how time flies.

Here’s the unboxing video we made…

Camera, sound and edit: Kai Newton 

Production Assistant: Emily Stay 

Pumpkinhead: George Stay 

Music: Dom Currie 

get a signed paperback here

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Authorized

I had the best time discussing the classic novelisation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Vonda N McIntyre with the Authorized podcast gang. I discuss my relationship with the film and the book and how both have inspired me as a writer…

Join Nicola May on the Creative Differences livestream

We kick off 2025 with a brilliant special guest! Nicola May is a hugely successful bestselling author renowned for her heartwarming and humorous …

Join Nicola May on the Creative Differences livestream

What’s the best social media platform for marketing books?

This month’s special guest GB Ralph reveals his preferred social media platforms for marketing his books…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: Marketing wise, which platform do you find the most successful for your books?

GB RALPH: I presume you mean, like, social media platform? All sort of have different purposes.
My Instagram is sort of… I’ve inherited friends and family who are very lovely. There’s only so many times you can sell the same book to your friends and family. Then Facebook. I’ve picked up a lot of readers who I wouldn’t have expected. TikTok was really fun. It comes in waves where I get enthusiasm to do some videos and then it drops off again. But that is… because TikTok shows your stuff to a lot of people who don’t follow you. So I think that has been really interesting to pick up people who’ve never heard of me because my videos have been shown to them or whereas on the other platforms a lot of it is your stuff getting shown to a subset of your own followers who already know you. I don’t know. Probably the most engagement is through my mailing list actually, because that’s the most reliable. It gets sent out and I can see roughly how many people open it. That’s where it starts. And then it’s sort of like, okay, I have the content now, I need to now I can recycle that to the social medias.

GB Ralph on Starting a First Draft

This month’s special guest GB Ralph reveals when he’s ready to start writing a draft…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: What’s the thing that makes you think you’re ready to start writing on a project?

GB RALPH: When I back-calculate from my deadline and find that I’m already behind schedule. (laughs) I don’t know, where is even the start line? Is it jotting down ideas, sketching them out? Plotting? Is it start writing, ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’? I’m ready to start drafting my next book now. Like, as in, chapter one, scene one as of this week. I have a victim. I have a handful of suspects, each with their potential motives, and that’s about it. But I have I have about two novels’ worth of content and that I want to fit into one novel. So we’re bursting at the seams, and I need to start writing to see what ideas are actually smaller than I thought they were. Ones that don’t fit in at all. Ones that are maybe bigger than I had originally thought and will spark more ideas.

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I Get Nostalgic on Chris Deacy’s Nostalgia Podcast

I’ve done a fair few podcast interviews, but I’m in a strangely reflective mood in this one. I’m interviewed by the excellent Chris Deacy, and in lieu of finding a studio to record in we did this in my car (hence the occasional gentle whoosh of passing motors) and it was recorded the night before the US election. My favourite bit is my thesis that nostalgia is a slippery slope to fascism… Yes, I was in one of those moods! Do please enjoy…

210: Stephen Willoughby – Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Stephen Willoughby, who studied Theology at Lampeter between 1984 and 1987. After university, Stephen’s path took a technical turn – he became a computer operator and later completed an MSc in Computer Science at Aberystwyth, a journey that reflects a broadening of Stephen’s skills. Stephen now works in quality assurance and holds a PhD in a related field. Originally from Orpington in Kent, he now lives in Derbyshire. Stephen has had a lifelong passion for radio, sparked on his 7th birthday when he received his first radio set. He was captivated early on by classical music and Radio 3, but it was Radio 2 in the 1980s that gave him a window into the wider world. He's steeped in the station's history and recalls listening to Alan Dell on Sunday afternoons, including the public reaction when there was talk of Dell leaving the airwaves. We discuss the magic of live radio, the days when Radios 1 and 2 shared the FM frequency, and the role of DJs like David Hamilton—who used to include the pop charts in his Tuesday afternoon Radio 2 shows. Stephen also shares which stations he listens to today, including Boom Radio, and reflects on whether he’s more of a looking back or a forward-looking person.
  1. 210: Stephen Willoughby
  2. 209: Cameron Tucker
  3. 208: Harry Bowles
  4. 207: Mark Stay
  5. 206: Numi Gildert

GB Ralph on Deadlines and Pre-Orders

This month’s special guest GB Ralph reveals the importance of deadlines, and why he sets up a book for pre-order before it’s even written…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your writing process?

GB RALPH: A small thing that has made a big difference in my creative process is having a deadline. No deadline, nothing happens. Deadline: Let’s go. I work well to a deadline, which is something I learned back in school. But as an indie author, there’s not really such a thing as a deadline, so I had to create one myself, which is… the main one is setting up a preorder for the next book, which forces me to get going through that, don’t you?

MARK: Because if you get that wrong, certain online retailers get very upset with the authors.

GB RALPH: Oh yeah. I know, I know which is is motivating. It can be stressful, but I think it’s a good kind of stress, the motivating kind, not the debilitating kind. It’s still deadline. It can be a year away, which is forever. And I need to constantly remind myself that I need to make little deadlines along the way. Ones that have consequences. Otherwise, I’ll pull a Douglas Adams and enjoy the wooshing sound as deadlines go by.

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Mike Shackle on Deadlines

This month’s special guest Mike Shackle reveals the importance of deadlines, why releasing each book is like a pay rise, and whether he’ll ever retire…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: How do you know when you’re done?

MIKE: Deadlines, deadlines. Basically, every time I release a book, I. It’s like giving myself a pay rise each month of $1,500. So, yeah, it starts a big pay rise each each time over a year
and things like that. So if I was being really cynical about my career, I would just be writing
the next detective book and putting out… I had a discussion with this Sebastien de Castell, because he was talking about, you know, when do we know we’re going to retire? I mean, but, I need I know the, the money I like and I need to live on, but I have to make this stuff. I have to tell these stories. Even if it was just me doing it. And that desire to do that is only got greater as the years have gone
on, I probably end up in a loony bin, dribbling in a corner, talking about Simon Wise and, you know, everything else…


MARK: Reserve a space for me…

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